Super Simple Shepherd’s Pie Recipe – With Mashed Cauliflower

If you’re looking for an easy, healthy and filling option for dinner tonight, look no further than the following shepherd’s pie recipe! As always, this recipe strays away from the traditional, but it’s delicious nonetheless, not to mention perfect for our carb-conscious readers.

This recipe makes up to nine small servings that reheat really well. With heaps of ground beef (or lamb) cooked with veggies, covered in a layer of mashed cauliflower and baked to seal in all the flavor, this savory “pie” is absolutely scruuuumptious!

Ingredients

a cup of ground LEAN beef (or lamb if you have it, but beef is cheaper)

Grind and season your meat (if you did not buy pre-ground meat) with salt pepper, cayenne and cumin. My food friend Howie, has pointed out that the beef I used looks ridiculously lean. It was! Super cheap too, puahaha! One point for China.

Add an egg…and some more seasoning

Chop up your onions, green onions and garlic…or be lazy like me and toss everything in a CLEAN food processor. Save half a stalk of green onion for your mashed cauliflower.

Heat up a pan with some olive oil and toss in your processed onion/garlic mix with some salt and pepper. Cook until it smells so good that you’ve made a drool puddle.

Add in the meat! Mix and cook on medium heat. Add in a slash of broth (or bullion and water) to keep the meat moist.

Transfer your mixture to a pot and keep cooking on medium heat, mixing as you go. At this point, mix in your frozen veggies and sprinkle in some italian herb seasoning.

Keep cooking until until most of the liquid has evaporated and the meat has browned.

Spread meat mix in a baking pan (or dish) and start working on your mashed cauliflower. At this point you may also want to preheat your oven to 205C/400F.

So I actually added an extra part to my shepherd’s pie…it’s completely optional! My carb conscious friends, stay away from this step. I’m not even going to insert a picture into the post. Anyways, I had some super cheap (but suspicious looking) potato salad on hand that I wanted to get rid of. My solution? Spread a layer over the meaty mix!

Fill a pot with about an inch and a half of water and set in the head of de-leafed cauliflower (whole is fine). Cook on medium heat for around 10 minutes or until you can easily mush the florets with a fork.

Cut up the cauliflower and process with some butter or sunflower based margarine, salt and green onions until the mixture is creamy.

Spread the mashed cauliflower on top of the meat (and maybe potato salad :3) mix.

Season and brush on a thin layer of melted butter or olive oil before popping the pan in the oven for about half an hour (or until the mashed cauliflower just started to become a little golden).

Remove the pan from the oven and let the shepherd’s pie settle and cool for about ten minutes before cutting and serving.

What a FABULOUS idea!! My husband makes Cauliflower Mash that I love. I never would have thought to use it in place of mashed potatoes for shepards pie! Genious! This is going into my “Recipes To Try” file!!